The Witcher 3 is The Final Chapter in Geralt’s Story

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was revealed early this morning when cover art for the latest issue of Game Informer was revealed to contain none other than Geralt, the series' protagonist, followed by a video showcasing a part of the game.

Just now, CD Projekt RED has reached out to us to announce that The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt will be Geralt's final adventure and the final episode in the Witcher trilogy. For the first time ever in the series, The Witcher 3 will also offer an open world that's said to be at least 30 times bigger than The Witcher 2.

“The captivating and nonlinear story of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt takes place in a rich, truly open world environment," said Adam Badowski of CD Projekt RED, who went on to describe a world "full of daring adventures, momentous quests, memorable characters, and unique monsters."

According to Badowski, players will be able to freely travel through the environment, made up of woods, lakes, mountains, cities, and villages to explore. Not unlike the world in Andrej Sapkowski's books, each region in The Witcher 3 is inhabited by distinct populations with their own customs, legends, and problems for you to solve in the form of quests.

"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is 30 times bigger than The Witcher 2," said Badowski.

“Imagine playing a dark fantasy game with the same great nonlinear story as in the previous Witcher titles, but now told in a world you can explore freely with no artificial boundaries," he continued.

"The war-ravaged world is so huge that to reach further places you will need to ride a horse or sail a boat to get there. A world where your choices have truly epic consequences. From the development side, this goal is extremely demanding. Our team had to make significant design changes and our tech had to be rebuilt. But we believe that this will lead to a completely new level of nonlinearity and a whole new, richer gaming experience."

In addition to the open world environment, players will be able to traverse the world upon a mount. The Witcher 3 will also offer a new combat system. The developer boasts that there will be "no Quick Time Events, only intuitive RPG gameplay."

CD Projekt RED confirms that the game is planned for a simultaneous release in 2014 on "all high-end platforms", meaning the PC and upcoming next-gen consoles like the tentatively titled Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. Further details of the game's technical capabilities were revealed in an announcement of the game's powerful RPG-oriented REDengine 3, which also powers the futuristic RPG they have in development, Cyberpunk 2077.